Federal workers without pay can file for California unemployment benefits

People rally outside EPA Region 9 Offices in San Francisco to protest the continuing shutdown of the government. Federal workers may be eligible for state unemployment benefits.

Photo: Jana Asenbrennerova / Special to The Chronicle

Federal workers in California who are furloughed or working without pay because of the partial U.S. government shutdown can apply for state unemployment benefits, although they will have to repay the benefits if they recover their lost wages.

On Friday, the House passed a bill, by a vote of 411-7, that said federal workers working without pay or on furlough will get reimbursed for lost wages as soon as the government reopens. The Senate passed the bill unanimously Thursday night, and President Trump said he would sign it.

Normally, people who are working without pay but with the promise of pay are not eligible for state unemployment benefits. But “because of this particular scenario” the governor’s office “allowed us to be more flexible,” said Loree Levy, a spokeswoman for the California Employment Development Department.

U.S. government workers who do not have an existing unemployment claim can apply by using the Unemployment Insurance Application for Federal Employees or calling a special number, 855-327-7056, from 8 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday. EDD has updated a frequently asked questions page on its website for federal workers.

On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a news conference that, “if you’re a furloughed worker, you are going to be made quickly eligible and we are going to expedite that.” Normally, there is a one-week waiting period between the time a worker files an unemployment claim and when benefits begin. Levy said Friday that federal workers will be subject to the same one-week waiting period, but that the department could backdate their claims so that the first week of the shutdown — Dec. 22 to 29 — would serve as the waiting period “if that’s when they were furloughed or started working without pay. If they weren’t impacted by the shutdown until later, then that would be the effective date of their claim.”

Newsom also said Thursday that only furloughed workers, not those working without pay, would be eligible for unemployment benefits. But EDD said Friday that all unpaid federal workers are eligible, working or not.

In a news release, EDD estimated that there are about 245,000 full- and part-time federal workers in California and that 779 of them filed for benefits in the week ending Dec. 29, the first week of the shutdown that started Dec. 22.

In California, unemployment benefits range from $40 to $450 a week for up to six months, depending on the worker’s quarterly earnings.

Newsom said he is profoundly worried about the ripple effects the shutdown could have on the state. He had his staff look at “what other appropriations could we make — could we make some loans to (the Transportation Security Administration), folks at air traffic control to subsidize their salaries?” He said that “was not well received by my finance team.”

Kathleen Pender writes the Net Worth column in The San Francisco Chronicle. She explains how the big business and economic news of the day affect a household's net worth. She covers saving, investing, debt, taxes, housing, mortgages, retirement plans, employment and unemployment with a focus on issues specific to California and the Bay Area.

When it comes to big financial decisions, she believes that the simplest answer is almost always the best and that people would stay out of money trouble if they didn't get involved in things they can't understand. Pender welcomes questions from readers and frequently answers them in her column.

She majored in business journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia and was a Knight-Bagehot fellow in business journalism at Columbia University.